The Effects of Contraceptive Education On Method Use at First Intercourse

By Jane Mauldon and Kristin Luker

Despite long-standing public support for sex education in the schools,
it has been difficult to show concrete effects of sex education on sexual
and contraceptive behavior. Data from the 1988 National Survey of Family
Growth indicate that exposure to a formal contraceptive education program
increases the likelihood that a teenage woman will use a contraceptive
method at first intercourse. According to the results of a multivariate
analysis, the odds that a young woman will use any method and the odds
that she will use a condom increase by about one-third following
instruction about birth control; the effect on the likelihood of pill use,
however, is nonsignificant. If contraceptive education occurs in the same
year that a teenager becomes sexually active, the odds of any method use
and of condom use are increased by 70-80%, and the odds of pill use
are more than doubled. The results also suggest that with greater
educational efforts, the proportion of teenagers who use condoms at first
intercourse could increase from 52% to 59%, while the proportion using no
method might decrease from 41% to 33%.